Games

October 03, 2014

Here’s a question to ponder as we head into the weekend. It came to us from a man named Matt on Facebook. He posted, “Random question that has always bugged me. Why is it called ‘Iowa Lottery’ when it’s the exact same lottery as other states?”

Now, that’s a good one! I think Matt is partly right and partly wrong. Here’s why:

It is true that you can buy tickets in Iowa in games that are sold in multiple states, including Powerball®, Mega Millions®, Hot Lotto® and All or Nothing™. But you also can buy lottery games here in our state that are completely unique to Iowa, including most of our scratch games and pull-tab games.

And bottom line, all of the proceeds from the sale of lottery tickets in the state of Iowa stay right here to benefit worthy Iowa causes. Since its start in 1985, the Iowa Lottery has raised more than $1.5 billion for the state programs that help us all. Today, lottery proceeds in Iowa have three main purposes: They provide support for veterans and their families through the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund; help for a variety of significant projects through the state General Fund; and backing for the Vision Iowa program, which was implemented to create tourism destinations and community attractions in the state and build and repair schools.

September 12, 2014

I gave a lottery speech yesterday to a really fun group at Marshalltown Community College and got a great question from an audience member that I thought I’d share here: The man wanted to know if Iowa Lottery employees can buy tickets here in our state.

As you might expect, the answer is no. As an Iowa Lottery employee, it’s against the law for me to buy tickets in Iowa or claim a prize here. And that’s as it should be – I know a lot about the lottery and its games, so it makes sense that I shouldn’t be playing. I always tell people that I have to live vicariously through them on this one!

But it’s perfectly fine for me to the play the lottery outside of Iowa because I don’t work for the lotteries in other states. And I definitely experience reverse psychology on this point, because now that I know I can’t play in Iowa, I almost always stop into a store to buy a ticket when I’m out of state. Hey, I want to win, too!

I know what you’re going to ask next: What’s the most I’ve ever won? I think I won $14 once on a scratch ticket! But the mental escape I get when I buy a ticket is a huge part of the fun for me. It’s my chance to daydream about what would happen if I ever won big.

Maybe someday it will happen. But as long as I work here, there’s one thing for sure: It won’t be in Iowa.

August 28, 2014

This morning, we announced that Iowa had a $2 million winner in last night’s Powerball drawing, and now, that prize has been claimed!

Duane Hanson of Osage came to lottery headquarters to claim the prize this afternoon, as you can see here! We’ll have video from Duane’s big day ready tomorrow, so check back here to view it! In the meantime, here are some details to tide you over:

When we asked Duane if he ever thought he’d win the lottery, he said he absolutely did. He’s apparently been telling people for years that he was going to hit it big – and now he has.

Duane, 58, works as a conductor for the Cedar River Railroad in Waterloo. His ticket came close to winning Wednesday night’s $80 million jackpot, matching the first five numbers but missing the Powerball. But Duane also added the Power Play option to his ticket, which multiplied his initial $1 million prize to $2 million.

Duane bought his $2 million-winning ticket at Casey’s, 309 Main St. in Osage. His was one of two tickets nationwide that won a $2 million prize in Wednesday’s Powerball drawing. Wednesday’s winning Powerball numbers were: 17-24-26-45-46 and Powerball 19.

Casey’s will receive a $2,000 bonus from the lottery for the $2 million-winning ticket being sold at its Osage store.

Duane said he plans to retire in 2015, so his lottery winnings will help a lot with retirement investments. He said he’s been talking about buying an acreage, so maybe he’ll be able to do that a little sooner now.

Four tickets in Iowa have now won prizes of at least $1 million so far this year, including two just this month!

On Aug. 18, three Johnston siblings claimed a $1 million prize they had won with a Mega Millions® ticket they purchased earlier this month at a Des Moines supermarket. In February, an Urbandale man won a $1 million Powerball prize with a ticket he had purchased at a local convenience store; and in January, a West Des Moines man won a $1 million prize in the “Lifetime Riches” instant-scratch game with a ticket he purchased at a local convenience store.

Three Iowa Lottery players now have won Powerball prizes of $2 million. Men from Decorah and Barnes City each claimed a $2 million Powerball prize in 2013.

No one won the jackpot in last night’s Powerball drawing, so the big prize increases to an estimated $90 million annuity ($54.9 million cash option) for Saturday.

August 01, 2014

Here’s an interesting question we just got in an email – and the answer we sent in reply. The man raises a really good point, it’s just not something we can accurately make available right now. But it’s something we’ll keep working on!

A man named Alex emailed us with this question: “Are there any publicly available records of which scratch tickets are currently stocked by retailers? I am an occasional instant game player who will pick up a few tickets when I pass through Iowa. I enjoy playing the $3 Jumble game, but have not seen many in stores recently. Your website indicates there are several top prizes remaining for this game, so I am curious as to where these tickets are currently being sold.”

Now there’s a guy who likes to be thorough in his planning! And we appreciate that.

If you’ve done your homework like Alex, you already know there’s a page on our website where you can look up the retailers in a particular area that sell lottery tickets. You can search for them by zip code or city. But we don’t have the ability in real time to list the games available at a particular location, and we think anything less would likely just cause more headaches than good, so we haven’t gone there.

There are identifying numbers on each lottery ticket that tell us, for example, when that ticket has been delivered to a particular location, when it was sold and when it was cashed. But we can’t see in real time when that location may have run out of tickets in that game, or if that store has decided to delay adding a particular game to its mix, which is a business decision it certainly can make.

If there’s a game you’re looking for like Alex was, we can always check with individual retail locations to see if they’ve got it available. We were able to pinpoint some locations for Alex that had the Jumble scratch game in the area he was visiting, so now he’ll be able to find them.

July 24, 2014

Someone sent us a question recently on Facebook that I'll bet you've wondered about as well, so here are the details of the conversation we had with her.

Melissa posed this question: Let's say I buy a ticket that's good for several drawings in a game like Powerball® or All or Nothing™. And let's say I win a prize in the second drawing for which my ticket is eligible! Do I have to wait until the last drawing on my ticket to claim my prize?

It's a great question, and I can understand why that would be a concern: What if you accidentally lose your ticket before that final drawing? What if you just forget to claim the prize because you didn't do that right away?

We thought through that scenario clear back when we first started offering the option of tickets for multiple drawings. So, if you win a prize before the last drawing on your ticket (and yay if that happens, by the way), you can go ahead and claim the prize right away. When your winning ticket is scanned by the lottery terminal, you'll get your prize or a prize claim form, depending on the size of your prize, along with a replacement ticket for the remaining drawings you have left. (Your original ticket will be kept by the retailer as part of the prize-claim process.)

So, no worries! Feel free to claim your prize at your convenience (but for sure within the deadline for claiming a prize within each game).

Great question, Melissa! Thanks for reaching out. And for everyone else, keep those questions coming! We're always glad to hear from you.

July 17, 2014

We were looking over our inventory lists this week and realized we’re down to about the last 10 percent of tickets in Mike’s Picks. And one of the game’s top prizes is still available, so maybe we’ll see its final $50,000 winner soon!

When we were putting together plans for that game, we ordered a supply of tickets that we thought would last for six months to a year. But Mike’s Picks has only been on the market for about 3½ months – the $5 game debuted April 3 – and it’s nearly sold out. We’re glad you like it!

Usually, Mike Wolfe is the one doing the picking on TV, but we’ve turned the tables on him this time, haven’t we?

July 07, 2014

The weather outside tells me summer definitely has arrived, so we’re kicking off the season with a new promotion offering up boats, camping gear and cash prizes.

Thirteen prizes totaling more than $50,000 are up for grabs in the “Sun Time Fun Time” promotion. You can enter it with nonwinning tickets from our four new X-themed scratch games that just started sales today.

They’re our new family of games – 5X, 10X®, 15X and 20X – and they offer top prizes from $5,000 up to $50,000 respectively. Even better is that nonwinning tickets in the games can be entered in the promotion from noon today through noon Sept. 2.

Each game corresponds with a different prize level in the promotion. Here are the tickets you can enter and the prizes you could win:

To enter the promotion, you’ll need to join or already be a member of the lottery’s free VIP Club. On the Sun Time Fun Time page, you’ll be asked to enter the 10-digit entry number from the front of a nonwinning ticket in one of the designated games along with the ticket number from the back.

We’ll hold the promotion’s drawings on Sept. 4. Complete rules are available on the lottery website at www.ialottery.com and drawing results also will be posted there.

10X® is used with permission from the Multi-State Lottery Association.

June 06, 2014

There are some topics that come up again and again in the lottery world, so I’ve put together a list of the Top 5 for you today.

The undisputed No. 1 is the whole cash vs. annuity argument -- Which is chosen more often? Which is better? What happens to “the rest of the money” when you choose the cash option? We answer all that and more in this video.

No. 2 on the list has got to be the urban legend that “no one from here ever wins.” Check out what we have to say about that here.

No. 3 focuses on easy picks vs. play slips in our lotto games. Which type of play is made more often? Are you more likely to win with one or the other? We answer that here.

No. 4 is a question about lottery proceeds, and specifically, where that money goes here in Iowa. Click here to find out.

And No. 5 on the list is the question asking whether you can remain anonymous in Iowa when you claim a lottery prize. The short answer is no, but we give the complete details here.

May 29, 2014

If you’ve followed the blog for a while, you know that I’ve posted warnings here several times about lottery scams. Well, a man who visited our Mason City office just reminded me that it’s likely time for another alert. We can never have too many reminders to keep things safe!

The man showed our Mason City staff a fax he had received. It contained a certificate appearing to bear witness to a $500,000 prize he’d won from the Iowa Lottery, along with what appeared to be a cashier’s check made out to him for that amount. Both the certificate and check had the Iowa Lottery’s logo on them. But there was just one catch. (And there’s always a catch with scammers, isn’t there?) During telephone calls with the man, the scammers said that in order for the prize to be processed, he needed to pay them a $649 fee. I have no idea why the scammers chose such a specific amount, but that’s what they said!

Obviously the fax did not come from the Iowa Lottery, and we assured the man of that. We also thanked him for bringing this latest scam attempt to our attention so we could warn others about it.

The folks in our Security Division researched the telephone number from which the fax originated and it definitely appears to have come from outside the United States. That makes it nearly impossible to trace, a frustrating situation we’ve often found through the years.

The best thing that any of us can do to protect ourselves is to remain vigilant against scams and NEVER share our personally-identifying information such as Social Security numbers or bank account information. Remember that the only way you can win a prize from the Iowa Lottery is if you've bought a ticket at a licensed retail location in Iowa and you can present the ticket to us.

We keep a Player Security section as a permanent feature on our website, so please review the details there to learn more.

If you ever get suspicious letters, telephone calls or e-mails about a lottery game, or if you're in doubt about information that supposedly came from a legitimate lottery, feel free to give us a shout at 515.725.7900 and ask to speak with someone in our Security Division. It’s always better to be safe than sorry!

May 07, 2014

We told you last week here on the blog that our “Hall of Fame” trip winners and their guests had arrived in Ohio for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s 50th Anniversary Fan Festival. Well, now we’ve got the images of all the fun they had on their trip. Color us officially jealous!

May 02, 2014

Here’s a great behind-the-scenes-at-the-lottery topic to send us into the weekend. We got this question Monday on Facebook: “Why are lottery tickets made in Canada? Seems to me we can do that here in the USA.”

He may not have known it, but the man who posed that question was right on both accounts.

Some of the lottery tickets we sell here in Iowa are printed in Canada. And there are facilities that print lottery tickets here in the United States as well. The background on the situation is that there are only a handful of companies in the entire world that meet the security requirements and have the advanced printing techniques necessary to print lottery tickets.

The Iowa Lottery has contracts to print scratch tickets with all three of the companies that supply that product to the U.S. market. Two of the companies are headquartered in America (in Georgia and Rhode Island specifically) and one of them is based in Winnipeg, Canada. Each of the companies has licensed products and patented processes that only they can provide. And to offer our players the widest variety possible in our games, we have working relationships with all three companies.

The Iowa Lottery’s pull-tab games, by the way, are printed right here in Iowa (in Council Bluffs) by American Games.

April 24, 2014

We made the announcement and blogged about why we were making the change earlier this month, but we’re still getting questions from players, so I’m touching on the topic again today. On April 16, the Iowa Lottery began conducting its own drawings in the Pick 3 and Pick 4 games. We now have winning numbers in those games that are unique to Iowa, and we no longer share results with the Illinois Lottery.

Some folks initially thought we were providing the wrong results when they saw that Iowa’s winning numbers in Pick 3 and Pick 4 were different than those in Illinois, but we’ve assured them that the information is, in fact, correct. We’ve added reminder messages on our website – they’re in red on the main pages for the Pick 3 and Pick 4 games – so those will hopefully help spread the word as well.

In addition to the details that we provide directly to you, many media outlets around the state provide the winning numbers in lottery drawings as a public service. We’ve been reaching out to newspapers, televisions stations and radio stations to make sure they’re aware of the change so they can double-check that they are providing the results correctly.

There’s an adjustment period when any change occurs. It makes me think of that old saying, “I like progress, I just don’t like change.” We’re about a week into this particular change and it seems like things are working out just fine. The good news is, people like the Pick 3 and Pick 4 games and are paying close attention to the winning numbers in them!

April 16, 2014

Our Cedar Rapids office has been hoppin’ today! Three big winners all just happened to be there at the same time to claim their prizes – and they all won big in different games.

First up was Terry Poley from New Albin, who won a $100,000 top prize in the $10 “Double Dollar Fortune” scratch game. Terry said he was giving that game one last chance – he’d bought two tickets in it recently that hadn’t won prizes, so he decided to buy just one more to see if he’d have any luck. And boy, did he! There’s one top prize left in Double Dollar Fortune now that Terry’s taken home his prize.

Next up was Linda McKeen of Jesup, who won a $10,000 prize playing Powerball. Linda said she had tickets from several drawings at home and just hadn’t checked them for a few weeks. When she finally did check them, she discovered she’d won big in the March 26 drawing. I told her she’d solved the mystery for us as to why the $10,000 prize from that night hadn’t been claimed even after a few weeks had passed.

And the third big winner was Nancy Sheridan of Harper’s Ferry, who won a $10,000 prize in the $10 “Make My Year” scratch game. Nancy said she usually buys tickets that cost $5, but she won some small prizes in the $5 “Make My Month” game, so she decided to try out “Make My Year.” And she won big!

Nancy said she scratched her ticket out in the car while her husband was still in the store paying for gasoline, so she was able to share the good news with him right away. And she already knows what she’ll do with the money: She plans to help her daughter with a down payment on her house

April 08, 2014

There’s a procedural change coming for the drawings in our Pick 3 and Pick 4 games, and from a player perspective, you’ll notice a couple updates.

The drawing results in the games will be unique to Iowa for the first time since the games were introduced here in our state. And the drawing times also will change slightly, as will the deadlines by which you’ll need to buy tickets for those drawings.

Beginning on Wednesday, April 16, Iowa-specific drawings will be held in both games. That’s a change from current procedures. Since Pick 3 was introduced in Iowa in 1998 and Pick 4 was added here in 2003, the Iowa Lottery has shared drawing results in those games with the Illinois Lottery.

But over time, both states have added different features to our individual games and we’ve heard from players wondering why we share drawing results but have separate options in each state. We think it makes sense to begin holding separate drawings to help avoid player confusion.

Pick 3 and Pick 4 both have drawings twice a day here in Iowa, with a midday drawing currently at 12:40 p.m. and an evening drawing about 9:20 p.m.

Starting April 16, the midday drawing in each game will be held at 12:50 p.m., with the sales cut-off time for that drawing at noon. The evening drawing in both games will be at 8:50 p.m., with the sales cut-off time for that drawing at 8 p.m.

For those who aren’t familiar with Pick 3 and Pick 4, they’re numbers games with a long history along the East Coast. But they’re also offered by numerous other lotteries across the country, including the Iowa Lottery. Pick 3 players choose combinations of three numbers from 0 to 9 while Pick 4 players choose combinations of four numbers from 0 to 9. The prize you could win depends on the type of play you make.

For example, you can choose the option of winning a prize only if your numbers match the winning numbers in the exact order they come up in the drawing. That’s called a straight play. Or, you can choose the option of winning a prize if your numbers match the winning numbers in any order. That’s called a box play. There are other options in the games as well.

Prizes in Pick 3 and Pick 4 are smaller than those in big-jackpot games like Powerball and Mega Millions®, but the odds of winning also are significantly better.

Iowa’s Pick 3 game features a top prize of $3,000, with odds of just 1 in 1,000 of winning it. Plays in Pick 3 range in cost from 50 cents to $5. Iowa’s Pick 4 game features a top prize of $30,000, with odds of 1:10,000 of winning it. Plays in Pick 4 also range cost 50 cents up to $5.

The $5 “Mike’s Picks” scratch game is hitting stores today. Look for the tickets with Mike’s picture on them and the rooster logo from his Antique Archaeology stores in Nashville, Tenn., and LeClaire. The game offers instant prizes from $5 up to $50,000. And if you don’t win a cash prize, you can enter your nonwinning tickets from the game into the Mike’s Picks promotion for a chance to win a trip to Nashville or LeClaire and products from Iowa companies.

The promotion kicks off at noon tomorrow and you can enter it through noon on June 30. We’ll hold the drawings on July 1.

In addition to the usual ticket information you’ll need to enter into the promotion, there’s an extra twist this time: You’ll be asked a “Mike’s Weekly Iowa Pick” question. He chose his favorite places and products in the state and we’re going to see how well you know them, too. Your answer to the question will determine the prize level for your entry.

We’ll give away one grand-prize trip to Nashville, where the winner and three guests can tour the Antique Archaeology store and the Grand Ole Opry®; six first prizes of a trip to LeClaire where the winner and three guests can tour the Antique Archaeology store and go on a riverboat tour; and 12 second prizes of an assortment of the Iowa products that Mike picked as some of his favorites.

March 27, 2014

The drawing results are in for our “Veterans Victory” promotion, and a northwest Iowa lottery player is finding out right now that they’re the winner of the custom-painted motorcycle!

We held the promotion drawing this morning, selecting Tracy Schultz of Peterson as the motorcycle winner. Peterson, population 334, is in Clay County.

Our players made nearly 97,000 entries in the promotion from its start on Jan. 6 through the end of the entry period at noon yesterday. The $1 “Ride To Riches” game was the entry vehicle for the promotion, and all proceeds from the sale of tickets in that game benefit Iowa veterans and their families through the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund.

The lottery had teamed up with artist Ray “Bubba” Sorensen II on the motorcycle project. It was the first time that Sorensen, the artist best known for his annual artwork on the huge “The Freedom Rock®” boulder near Greenfield in western Iowa, had painted a motorcycle. Since our first games to benefit the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund debuted in July 2008, the Iowa Lottery has raised nearly $15 million for the cause.

Thanks to everyone who entered! We’ll announce a new promotion in April that you’ll be able to enter with nonwinning tickets in a new scratch game.

March 21, 2014

A player question that’s come our way is one we see a lot. So here is the Q-and-A in case you’ve wondered the same thing.

Q: Why does the lottery pull a particular scratch game from the market?

A: As part of our standard procedures, we end sales in our scratch games for a few different reasons.

While we have dozens of games for sale at any one time, there are only so many bins for tickets in our vending machines and only so many slots for tickets in our dispensers. That means some retail locations simply don’t have enough room for all the games that are out there, and the retail location can decide which games it wants to sell.

Most often, we discontinue sales in a particular scratch game when the last top prize in it has been claimed. We don’t want a game on the market if you don’t still have the chance to win its top prize!

Sometimes we have specially-themed games that are only set to run for a short period of time, like our holiday games. Those games come off the market in January each year because it just wouldn’t make sense if we were selling “Merry Crossword” in July! But the good news is, we work hard to keep the odds of winning the same in those games as they are in others that are on the market for much longer.

At other times, if a game has been available for some time and players show us through their purchases that they prefer something else, it also will be removed from the shelves.

People’s reactions to our procedures sometimes make us chuckle because they can be so different. We’ve gotten complaints from players who don’t want us to ever end a game at the same time we’ve heard from others who want to make sure that we very definitely are doing that, especially when the last top prize has been claimed.

In the end, we just have to concentrate on doing what we think is right. Throughout the Iowa Lottery’s history, we’ve designed our policies to err on the side of players as much as possible. A good example of that is the expiration date for prizes in our games. If a prize expires on a weekend or holiday when our offices are closed, we give you until the following business day to claim the prize. We think that’s only fair.

We’ll keep doing our best to come up with fun, new games to replace those that are ending!

February 10, 2014

You’ll want to be listening to the lottery terminal as you’re playing Powerball® in Iowa right now! That’s because a new promotion has started today, giving some lucky Powerball player a free play in the new All or Nothing™ game with every 10th Powerball transaction that’s made statewide.

Every time a free All or Nothing play is automatically generated in the promotion, the lottery terminal will make a trumpet sound – so have your listening ears on! If you hear the trumpet when you make your Powerball purchase, it means the lottery terminal has generated a free play in All or Nothing along with your Powerball ticket.

The promotion will keep going until 50,000 free plays have been generated in All or Nothing. We’re not sure how long that will take – it all depends on how sales are doing.

02-17-14 Update: We just issued free play No. 50,000 at 3:40 p.m. today, so the All or Nothing promotion has ended. And we heard this afternoon from two players who each won a $1,000 prize on the free play they'd received. Awesome news, thanks for playing!

Remember that the free play is not for every 10th purchase that’s made at a particular location, but rather, it’s generated with every 10th Powerball transaction statewide. So, you never know when the next free ticket will come up!

Have fun playing Powerball and maybe you’ll get an All or Nothing freebie while you’re at it! It’s the new lotto game where you win for matching all the numbers or none of the numbers

February 04, 2014

Getting to meet our winners is one of the nicest things about working at the lottery, and this man’s story just blew us away. I hope it lifts your spirits today, too!

On Friday, Robert Mead of Roxton, Texas, claimed a $100,000 prize here at lottery headquarters in Des Moines. He’s an over-the-road trucker who travels across the country, but his Iowa connection is that he grew up near Sioux City and his parents still live in that area.

And get this: Mead has won three lottery prizes of $100,000 in the last two years, all in different states. Mead said that each time he’s won, he’s shared some of his winnings with others. He says it gives him a good feeling to pay it forward when fortune smiles upon him.

In July 2012, Mead won a $100,000 prize on a scratch ticket in Colorado. Last June, he won a $100,000 lottery prize in Texas. And now lottery luck has struck for him here in Iowa.

Mead says that he and his wife, Faye, have been trying to sell their home in northeast Texas for some time now, as they want to move to Louisiana to be closer to their children and grandchildren. He says he’s now going to give the house away to a deserving couple with five children. He was planning to call and surprise them after he left the lottery.

So where does his lottery luck come from? Mead said he just got a feeling to buy a scratch ticket when he stopped for fuel at the Pilot Travel Center in Atalissa. So he bought a “Blazing Hot 7s Game Book” ticket, scratched it, and said he couldn’t believe his eyes. But it was true! He was a $100,000 winner AGAIN!

January 30, 2014

It’s been a fun week, with lots of folks learning about “All or Nothing” as our newest lotto game got underway. And a southwest Iowa woman has had good early luck in All or Nothing, winning a $1,000 prize in last night’s drawing.

Helen Forrester of Carson said she’s excited it took just one number for her to win. She said that the number four has been lucky for her and that’s the winning number she matched in yesterday’s evening drawing. She claimed her prize today at our regional office in Council Bluffs.

January 24, 2014

We’ve had a blast reading your comments this month about what you think we’ve had in the works. Thanks for joining in the fun and sending in your guesses!

Today, we’ve got the big announcement. Robert, one of our blog readers, NAILED IT with his guess on Jan. 13: the Minnesota State Lottery and the Iowa Lottery ARE working together to offer a multi-state version of a game called “All or Nothing.”

All or Nothing sales begin on Tuesday and the game’s first two drawings will be that same day.

We think its name is self-explanatory: You can win All or Nothing’s top prize of $100,000 by matching all of the numbers in one of its drawings or none of them. We’ve been joking around that we couldn’t decide if people should win for matching everything or coming up empty, so we decided to do both!

There are 10 ways you can win in the game’s hourglass prize structure. You’ll win the $100,000 top prize at the two extremes – for matching all or nothing – and smaller prizes from $1 to $1,000 working in from there. Here are all the details:

ALL OR NOTHINGTicket price: $1Sold in: Iowa and MinnesotaPlayers choose 12 numbers from a pool of 24Drawings twice a day, seven days a week, at 12:45 and 8:45 p.m.

Numbers Matched

Prize

Odds Of Winning

12

$100,000

1 in 2,704,156

11

$1,000

1:18,779

10

$20

1:621

9

$5

1:56

8

$1

1:11

7

$0

6

$0

5

$0

4

$1

1:11

3

$5

1:56

2

$20

1:621

1

$1,000

1:18,779

$100,000

1:2,704,156

Here in Iowa, All or Nothing will replace Iowa’s $100,000 Cash Game, which offers a top prize of $100,000 and has had drawings six days a week. The final Cash Game drawing will be tomorrow (Jan. 25).

January 09, 2014

Now here’s a great story to start off the New Year! A mistake during his ticket purchase has led to a $1 million lottery win for a West Des Moines man.

Arturo Hernandez claimed the eighth and final top prize in the “Lifetime Riches” scratch game today. He said he went to a local convenience store to buy lottery tickets and the clerk accidentally sold him a couple from a different game than the one he’d intended to play. But he said he just went with it, took his tickets home to play them – and won big!

And when we asked Hernandez, 23, why he thinks all that happened, he had a simple explanation: “I just figure things happen for a reason.”

Hernandez’s family owns a local business and he said his lottery win comes at a perfect time: Their restaurant, El Rey Burritos in West Des Moines, is currently moving to a new location, so his prize winnings can help cover some of the moving costs.

Hernandez’s prize claim triggered the $20 Lifetime Riches game to be removed from sale. As part of its standard procedures, we end sales in our scratch games for a few different reasons, including when the last top prize has been claimed.

Players had the option of receiving the top prize in Lifetime Riches in annuitized payments over time or as a one-time, lump-sum payment. Winners who chose the annuity option would receive $40,000 per year for 25 years. Winner who chose the lump-sum payment received $650,000 before taxes. Hernandez chose the lump-sum option.

And the store where he got his winning ticket? Kum & Go, 1301 Eighth St. in West Des Moines. Nice mistake, Arturo!

And by the way, we’ve had three other big scratch-game winners today as well: • Lloyd Moore of Granger claimed the sixth of ten top prizes of $50,000 available in the “Instantly Rich” game;• Brad Zipse of Northwood claimed the first of seven top prizes of $50,000 in the “Make My Month” game;• and Connie Jo Kelly of Pella claimed the first of six top prizes of $100,000 in “Make My Year”! Whew, what a day! (And it’s not over yet!)

December 18, 2013

The dust is settling today, giving us a chance to recap the final details from last night’s Mega Millions drawing. Nearly 175,000 plays sold in Iowa won prizes last night, and the giant jackpot ended up being even higher than the final estimates heading into the drawing.

Two tickets purchased in Burlington and Ankeny came within one number of having a share of the jackpot and won prizes of $5,000 each. The monster grand prize was split by tickets in California and Georgia.

Here’s the nitty-gritty:

• A total of 174,234 plays purchased here in Iowa won prizes last night ranging from $1 up to $5,000. Each of the tickets that won a $5,000 prize matched four of the first five numbers drawn and the Mega Ball. They were purchased at Burlington Jet Stop South, 901 South St. in Burlington; and Hy-Vee Gas, 414 N. Ankeny Blvd. in Ankeny.

• Last night’s winning numbers were: 8-14-17-20-39 and Mega Ball 7. The Megaplier was 4. Strong sales in Iowa and across the country had pushed the jackpot higher and higher as the drawing approached, and the final calculations lifted the ultimate jackpot number to $648 million annuity ($347.7 cash option). The two tickets that matched all six numbers drawn to split the jackpot were purchased at a newsstand in Atlanta, Ga., and a gift shop in San Jose, Calif.

• Lottery players here in Iowa bought nearly $2.9 million in Mega Millions tickets for last night’s drawing, including nearly $1.9 million in tickets yesterday alone. During yesterday’s busiest stretch from 5-6 p.m., Mega Millions tickets were selling at an average of about $4,450 per minute in Iowa. But the average Mega Millions ticket price for the day here in Iowa was just $4. That tells us a whole bunch of people were buying tickets, and everyone appeared to be playing at a fun level.

December 17, 2013

We’ve got early drawing results tonight! And while there wasn’t a Mega Millions® jackpot winner in Iowa, two plays purchased in our state came ever so close to having a share of the big prize.

The two lucky Iowa plays were just one number away from having a share of the jackpot. They each matched four of the first five numbers and the Mega Ball to win a $5,000 prize. And a total of 174,234 plays purchased in Iowa won prizes tonight ranging from $1 up to $5,000!

The winning numbers in tonight’s $636 million Mega Millions drawing were 8-14-17-20-39 and Mega Ball 7. The Megaplier was 4.

Strong sales in Iowa and across the country had pushed tonight’s jackpot higher and higher as the drawing approached. The estimated jackpot amount was $636 million annuity ($341.2 million cash option). It’s the second-largest jackpot on the world-record list and the second-largest jackpot ever offered in Mega Millions.

Complete results for tonight’s big drawing aren’t available yet. With 45 lotteries in the Mega Millions game, a lot of them are still processing their records to determine their in-state results. We’ll have full details tomorrow morning, including the locations where the big-winning tickets were sold here in Iowa.

If you’re one of our lucky $5,000 winners, you can claim your prize at any of our offices.

Mega Millions® sales across the country are continuing to run ahead of even our lotteries’ best predictions, and because of that, that jackpot just keeps climbing. It’s exciting and a tad overwhelming!

The jackpot initially was estimated at $550 million for tonight’s drawing, but it was raised yesterday and it’s been raised again today. It now stands at an estimated $636 million annuity ($341.2 million cash option). It’s the second-largest jackpot on the list of world record lotto prizes and it’s the second-largest jackpot in Mega Millions history.

Tonight’s estimated annuitized prize has now grown $211 million just since Friday.

Why has the jackpot estimate been raised so many times? It all comes down to sales, which are outpacing even our projections. And as strong sales continue, we keep making adjustments to the jackpot estimate!

Tonight’s Mega Millions drawing is at 10 p.m. Iowa time. You can buy a ticket here in Iowa for tonight’s drawing up until 8:59 p.m. If you buy a ticket after that deadline, it will be for an upcoming drawing.

If you’ve got a ticket, good luck tonight! And please, please remember our reminders about responsible play. It just takes one ticket to have a shot at the big prize. Don’t spend more than you can afford.

December 11, 2013

We talk a lot here at the lottery about the dreaming you can do for just a buck or two when you buy one of our tickets. And with the Mega Millions jackpot hitting an estimated $400 million for Friday’s drawing, we know a lot of folks are daydreaming about what they’d do with the money.

That’s why we think this video from the folks at WestJet really hits the spot right now. Enjoy a dose of holiday dreams and magic!

And for all the details about our lucky Friday the 13th drawing in Mega Millions, click here.

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As the lottery’s vice president of external relations, I’m a member of the senior management team at the Iowa Lottery, where I’ve worked since 1999. I’ve spent my years at the lottery learning as much as I can about all the ins and outs of the lottery industry. I’ll put that knowledge to work here so I can share the behind-the-scenes details with you!